OFFSTAGE: Rascal Flatts on Death Star vs. Evel Knievel

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that’s happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

I remember reading somewhere that Keith Urban‘s favorite Christmas gift as a boy was a Tonka truck. That is so classic. Such an old-school gift-under-the-tree memory. Then I read that the guys from Rascal Flatts had very different kinds of memories. Jay DeMarcus told CMT Radio the best Christmas gift he ever received as a kid was the Death Star space station
. “Oh, it had to be the Death Star, the Star Wars Death Star, when I was a kid because it was huge, you know, and it had so many pieces to it, and it was like three-stories tall. … I mean, it was really cool,” he said of the pricey play set with working elevators, trap doors and a trash compactor. (It must’ve been the toy of a boy’s youth, but I wouldn’t know because I was too busy playing with my Barbie Dream House and Barbie Friendship Plane.) But then when Gary LeVox said his favorite gift was his Evel Knievel crank-up action figure, DeMarcus said, “That’s my answer. I want to switch mine!”